Category Archives: Federal Reserve

No Change in Libor After Central Bank Action

Shock and awe indeed. The markets remain unimpressed after yesterday’s coordinated action by five central banks explicitly to address the lack of liquidity in the money markets. The cost of dollar borrowing did fall slightly, but less than expected. From Bloomberg: The interest rates banks charge each other for short-term loans remained close to the […]

Maybe the Real Reason for the Central Bank (Especially the Fed’s) Actions Wednesday

One of the perils of being an evening/overnight blogger is that one is either early or late to news items. But a positive aspect of being on the late side is that one can (hopefully) be thoughtful rather than reactive. Wednesday we had the spectacle of five central banks taking coordinated action to deal with […]

Central Banks Coordinate to Inject Liquidity, First Time Since 9/11

Bloomberg reports on the coordinated effort by major and even some not-so-major central banks (Canada’s and Switzerland’s central banks are included) to tackle high interbank lending rates. One investor called it to “shock and awe,” which is a worrying comparison. In fact, the plan does not add net liquidity, but merely provides additional one-month term […]

Is the Fed Using the Wrong Playbook?

John Dizard, in the Financial Times, tells us how the Fed is giving the wrong medicine to the colicky credit markets. But even though Dizard, in effect, argues that the Fed doesn’t get it, he isn’t taking up the verging-on-hackneyed lament, “the markets are a mess, so the Fed needs to open the floodgates.” Dizard’s […]

Maybe I Am Too Cynical (Wall Street Journal Edition)

We’ve noted on this blog repeatedly that the Wall Street Journal does an erratic job of covering the credit markets, sometimes reporting stories as late as a full month after they have appeared either at Bloomberg or the Financial Times. And we’ve also repeatedly caught the Wall Street Journal putting a positive spin on news […]

Rising Inflation Expectations Conflict With Fed Rate Cut

A story on Bloomberg notes that the Fed has been sanguine so far about inflation because inflation expectations haven’t seemed to be rising. However, a measure the Fed relies upon, the five year forward inflation rate, has risen above the level that led the Fed to start its rate increases in 2004. In other words, […]

Traders Cut Estimates of 50 Basis Point Rate Cut, But Asset Backed Commercial Paper Rates Rise

Two Bloomberg stories discussed the conflicting currents in the short term markets. First on the reduced expectations of a large Fed funds rate reductions: Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade indicated a 24 percent chance that policy makers will lower the 4.5 percent target rate for overnight lending between banks by a half- […]

US Recession May Be the Best Medicine

The headline above isn’t precisely how Gilles Saint‑Paul of the Toulouse School of Economics states his conclusions in his article at Vox EU, “How the US imbalances can be corrected.” But he makes a solid case that a US recession is likely the better way to deal with our current economic mess than rate cuts. […]

Fed Funds Futures Say Traders See Odds of 50 BP Rate Cut at 50%

This story on the sentiment among traders appeared on Bloomberg this afternoon. It appears the Fed’s bout of hawkishness was awfully short lived, since the latest move is in reaction to Kohn’s and Bernanke’s latest statements, plus the rising in dollar Libor, which is now 65 basis points over the Fed funds rate. The 50% […]

More UK Credit Market Worries (Plus Further Discussion of the Likely Efficacy of Rate Cuts)

The US isn’t the only country facing a nasty inflation/deflation policy dilemma. The Financial Times gives us further detail on the worrisome conditions in the UK money markets, and a story in the Telegraph describes how the UK’s Shadow Monetary Policy Committee is troubled by the unprecedented drop in loans outstanding from August to the […]

"Rate cutting will not get us out of this mess"

Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times provides an excellent and from what I can tell, overlooked argument against central banks’ eagerness to cut interest rates to shore up wobbly financial markets. His point is simple, and I am annoyed that I didn’t think of it. The reason that monetary authorities are so quick to lower […]

The Economist and Brad Setser on the Dollar

The Economist put “The Panic About the Dollar” on its cover, which led to a speedy and lengthy analysis by Brad Setser who along with Menzie Chin are probably the most active and best informed bloggers on the currency beat. Although the Economist isn’t what it used to be, the two pieces (the leader and […]

"Should the Fed raise interest rates?"

Willem Buiter, the London School of Economics political economy professor who blogs at the Financial Times, asks the provocative question in the headline above, and after a very length discussion, that they probably shouldn’t yet, but they most assuredly should not cut rates. But what is more interesting about this post, and I’ve excerpted those […]

Commercial Credit Dropping at Fastest Rate Since 1973

The New York Times is having a good week. Today, in “Lenders’ Belt-Tightening Stifles Growth in Economy,” Peter Goodman examines the recent sharp fall in credit extension to commercial enterprises, particularly small businesses. It’s a solid piece of reporting, and reading it, one wonders why the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chairman Donald Kohn didn’t allude to […]

The Newly Hawkish Fed’s Communication Problem

From time to time, Mark Thoma features the views of his University of Oregon colleague and Fedwatcher Tim Duy. Duy got his last call wrong. He genuinely believed the Fed would not cut, basically because not cutting was the right thing to do, and misread the FOMC’s sensitivity to market reactions, or to be less […]